• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Better signal than a Razr

michaelkahl

michaelkahl

Android Enthusiast
So I'll just post this here to avoid sounding like a troll. I work IT located in an area of the city with marginal signal. I'm usually between -87 to -97 DB. Today a user came in needing email setup on his new Razr. The bad news...he had no signal. He couldn't connect to LTE at all. His signal kept dropping and wouldn't even get on 3g at first. I turned on my hotspot and got him setup.
At one point my co-worker said look he's got a -75db LTE signal...then it disappeared. I mentioned Anandtechs article that talked about LTE phones displaying 3g/1x signal strength even when connected to LTE.
Anyway, he may have had a defective Razr but I thought it was funny to see an experience polar opposite of what we hear on the forums.
My Nexus actually tops my avg LTE speeds on the TBolt. I've had a very positive experience so far, my best with Android in fact. I know this isn't the case for everyone but I simply wanted to share my story.
 
nexus download speeds are phenominal.

Use an app like sensorly to compare between SGN 4G reported and other 3G reported.

Is there a sticky here yet, haven't checked. But this comes up all the time!
 
i purchased the Bionic on release day (9/8), and had nothing but problems with the data connection (even using the leaked updates). i purchased the GNex on 12/16 and couldn't be happier - the data connection is far superior to the Bionic (faster and more stable).

it's gonna be a very long time before i consider trying another Moto phone.
 
PhilD I agree, I've owned the Eris-Droid-DInc-DX-TBolt-and now the Nexus. All the quirks and annoyances I had with Android were on the "skinned" devices. (I know the Droid wasn't skinned but it wasn't exactly a Google phone either)
Phones from Moto and HTC have had little things that drove me crazy. HTC phones typically had the worst battery life, being limited to using Sense widgets on the Sense homescreen and terrible talk time. Moto phones have excellent construction, random reboots in my experience, and had a terrible UI experience out of the box.
I had the Rezound for three weeks when I started getting random reboots. I've heard reports that it was caused by network authentication issues, either way it still bugs me. Verizon granted me an early upgrade with no additional fees, I couldn't see wasting it on a slightly upgraded TBolt. The Nexus was a phone I'd been waiting for on Verizon ever since the first Nexus.
 
I have a Nexus and my wife the Razr. Its odd, but the Razr shows a consistently better 4G signal strength (like -83dbm) compared to the Nexus (like -105dbm). I haven't really compared the 3G signals but I can. However, the weaker signal certainly doesn't affect tge download speeds, as speed test (for what they are worth) are consistently better on the Nexus. I believe the nexus may have a newer radio/chip which could explain the difference in performance.
 
Tim K said:
I have a Nexus and my wife the Razr. Its odd, but the Razr shows a consistently better 4G signal strength (like -83dbm) compared to the Nexus (like -105dbm). I haven't really compared the 3G signals but I can. However, the weaker signal certainly doesn't affect tge download speeds, as speed test (for what they are worth) are consistently better on the Nexus. I believe the nexus may have a newer radio/chip which could explain the difference in performance.
Click to expand...

That's because the Razr is NOT reporting 4G signal. The only devices that report 4G signal correctly are ones that have either ICS or Honeycomb. All other devices report 1X/3G signal even when in 4G mode. That being said my Xoom and Razr do get better signal than my Nexus most of the time. When in very good signal areas the Nexus does fine but in medium to low signal areas not so much.
 
Now that I've had some time to actually use the nexus I'm fairly happy. Though samsungs quality control could use some work. I'm comparing the nexus to a fascinate and everything I loathed about that phone is fixed. I work in a steel bulidling and for the first time in over a year I had a reliable conversation over google voice. Even better is battery life. I used to charge the fascinate on my way home from work and thats with the data off. I get a full day from the nexus!
 
I have had the Bionic, Razr, Rezound, and GN. Pretty much all of them showed a better dbm number than the GN in the same spot but all of them dropped connection more than my GN by ten fold at the least(They all dropped connection on a regular basis, once a day or once every other day, I have lost connection on the GN once since launch). In the real world, the GN clearly has the best radio hardware/software setup.
 
Wow, the stories on this thread is so relieving and encouraging after seeing so many posts on 4G signal issues on other threads. Maybe I'm not in so good 4G area or need to re-install SIM card.
 
Keep in mind that the majority of GN signal complaints were from people looking at the bars and not seeing many and saying oh no the phone has signal issues, not from actually having problems.
 
dreadnatty08 said:
FWIW, wife's Bionic always records better dBM measurements in our apartment (strong 4G coverage here).
Click to expand...

Did you use sensorly to make that comparison?

Remember the SGN reports 4G signal on the about screen.

The bionic and all other 4G phones report the 3G signal.


Where's the banghead icon and the sticky thread about this?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom